Onions focaccia: football food and happy memories

Some foods are simply part of your life. You cooked them hundreds of time, your mum cooked them thousands of time and in the end is like they’ve always been there, linked to your past, your present and your future. This is certainly true for this onions focaccia recipe: I perfectly remember the first time I eat it, the people who were with me. It was a hot ans sunny summer and it was the summer of an incredible big event in Italy. 1990: I was in the transition between a child and a teen and the Football World Cup was held in Italy. Everyone was so exited!! I remember that days spent at the sea talking about football and even more the evenings, all together in front of tv with my beloved cousins. Of course I didn’t understand anything about football at that time, but I liked so much Nicola Berti, the most beautiful Italian player 🙂

Protagonists of that world cup are still around and I saw them on TV during the Brazilian event: Klinsmann, Matheus, Maradona… these incredible champions are so linked to our memories, mainly nice memories, that really it’s easy to think at them with a soft smile: like the onion focaccia seems like they’ve always been there, part of the postcards of our lives.

Coming back to the recipe: as you’ve probably already realized, this one is really linked to beautiful moments of my life, and I hope you will enjoy it and that will bring you the same happiness! Buon appetito!

Vegetarian pasta al forno (baked pasta): everyday is Sunday lunch!

Countdown: – 3 days! Yes, just 3 days and I will be back in Italy! My heart is running fast with joy. Visiting parents, walk in the city center, make some shopping, drink tons of cappuccino, … and the great thing: living faraway means that your mom is so happy to see you that will cook the best food she’s able to. You can request everything you want and she will spend time in the kitchen just for you, so I guess that we’re going to have almost 3 days of “Sunday lunch”.

I call it “Sunday lunch” because really in Italy, and especially in my family, Sunday was the day when mom had more time to cook and is the traditional day to eat lasagna, or home-made pasta al forno (baked pasta). I’m so happy to come home that I want to celebrate sharing my recipe for vegetarian pasta la forno with you! Hope you will enjoy it, buon appetito!!

 

Ingredients:

–          3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oils

–          1 onions finely chopped

–          2 pepperoni (1 yellow and 1 orange)

–          1 eggplant

–          1 zucchini

–          1 cup of frozen peas

–          2 bottle of tomato sauce

–          500 g rigatoni

–          Salt

–          250 g Appenzeller cheese (or mozzarella or Emmethaler)

–          Parmesan cheese (grated)

 

 

Pour 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large pan, add the onion finely chopped. Cook for few minutes at low flames, till the onion becomes soft. Increase the heat and add the 2 pepperoni wash and cut in small cubes. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add all the other vegetables. Cook for 10 minutes mixing well then add the tomatoes sauce and adjust with salt. Let boil, then put medium flames, cover and cook for around 30 minutes. Meanwhile cook the pasta in salted boiling water, drain it al dente (meaning that it shouldn’t be too soft) and mix with your vegetarian sauce. Add cheese cut in small cubes and a generous bunch of grated parmesan cheese. Toss well and cook in pre-heated oven (180°C or 360°F) for around 30 minutes, till cheese is completely melted.

 

Eggplants, tomatoes & pecorino: the last taste of summer

It’s always sad come back from holidays and it’s even sadder if you leave sand, sea and sun and find yourself already in autumn! So, even if outside it’s raining, I love to cook something that keeps my mind on the beach, that reminds me of blue sky and lazy afternoons. One of my favourite summer ingredient is eggplant: my love for them is quite an addiction! They are so full af flavors that it’s enough to mix them with simple ingredients, like tomatoes and pecorino, to get a dish able to surprise everyone, like this one… hope you like it!

Ingredients:

– 2 eggplants

– 5 tomatoes

– 2 cloves of garlic

– 2 tablespoon of oregano

– extra virgin olive oil

– salt and pepper

– 3 tablespoon of pecorino cheese, grated

Pasta with vegetarian ragout & the tomatoes addiction

If you love Italian cuisine there are many chances that you love pasta. Together with pizza, pasta is certainly one of our national prides and the reason for that is simple: pasta and pizza are cheap and versatile. You can open your fridge and certainly find something that is good to put on a pizza or a pasta dish, the only thing you need is fantasy and the ability to mix different ingredients to create a magical flavour.

I’m pretty sure that you can try to cook pasta with everything on your mind, but for me pasta with tomatoes is always the best. So I have to admit: I have a tomatoes addiction and I’ve had it for so long. I wasn’t even 1 year old when my mom, coming back from work, found me in the box with all my face red with tomatoes juice. I was the first niece and the first female in the family so the truth is that my grandpa went totally crazy for me and spent hours cultivating tomatoes just for me. My grandpa was a strange man: silent and hard like the ground he cultivated, I don’t remember him saying “I love you” but I know he did love me so much. When he got older I remember all the tenderness, that he never expressed with words, in his beautiful blue eyes. Many years passed since he left this world, but in my heart I still have the image of this strong man, with his hands damaged  by hard work and the back bent to work the veggie garden.

Red, white & blue frozen yogurt: all my love for United States

I can tell you almost 100 reason why I love U.S. and Americans so much, but one of the biggest is their love for their own country. During our first travel to Southwest, and then again in Montana, in Wyoming and in Colorado, we often saw big signs saying “God bless America” and “We sustains our troops” and I was totally enchanted.

For Europeans the American foreign policy is a complete mystery: since centuries we Europeans are all neighbours ( the Mediterranean Sea seems sometimes only a big pond) and this proximity forced us to develop a system of close relationships and to manage every action with caution. Americans have a more direct approach but the question here is not if they’re right or wrong, the point is that they are able to distinguish from the political decision to make a military mission or even a war, and the people that is there, with an helmet on the head and a rifle in the hand, doing their duty.   These guys, with different skin colors and ethnic roots, risk their lives for a higher ideal, that of a country that is the Land of the Free, where their ancestors came to realize a big dream. It’s incredible for me see how a country that is made by so many different ethnic groups is able to unify everything under the love for a flag. Today ‘s  the 4th July and I want to celebrate it even if I’m not American, because this country gave me a lot of unforgettable moments and incredible emotions. This dessert is my personal tribute to a country that I love with all my heart, hope you’ll enjoy it!

Ingredients:

– 400 g natural white yogurt

– 50 g white sugar

– 2 eggs white

– 1 cup of blueberries

– 1 cup of currants

Beat the eggs white to aerate, then add the sugar and beat at high speed till get a meringue. Pour 400 g of white yogurt in a large bowl an add a little bit at the time, tossing lightly, the meringue. Put the mixture in silicon moulds and let frozen for almost 5 hours. Decore with currants and blackberries. To make the small jar I seasoned cranberries and currants separately with a spoon of lemon juice and a teaspoon of sugar. Happy 4th July!

Risotto with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese: Grandma’s Maria pantry

It occurred to me just recently that things that we consider culinary delights, not so long ago were a pure necessity. For us, modern girl that sometimes have a more stable relationship with our refrigerator than with other human beings, for us that are so used to doing our shopping in big supermarkets where you can find strawberries and tomatoes even in December, it’s difficult to imagine that our mothers grew up in houses where talking about a refrigerator seemed as strange as talking about UFO. But even if it seems strange, our grandmas DID manage the house without a fridge…so here we are with the story of Grandma’s Maria pantry, a magic room full of food.

Rodi Garganico is a small fishermen village in the south of Italy, just a white blur suspended between a blue sky and a wonderful and transparent sea. Maria lived there with her husband and her 3 children, in a white house in the center of the village. Summer has always been generous: the sea gave fishes and the fertile land gave olives, tomatoes, corn and a lot of fruit. But this generous land had known wars (my husband’s father was born in 1949, just 4 years after the II World War) and Maria’s husband had spent a lot of years far away under the army. So, gestures handed down for generations, seemed even more important. You had to work hard so that your pantry had enough food to feed the family during winter.

My step-father perfectly remembers those years and how, as a small child, he climbed the stair and entered this magic room full of food: olives, walnuts, melons, sacks of flour that Maria used to make a big bread loaf every 2 weeks..and of course tomatoes.

Sun-dried tomatoes have an ancient story: Maria made what for generations other women had done. She cut tomatoes in 2 halves and let them dry in open air over a wooden surface, under the rays of the sun. Every night she took them inside, to preserve them from humidity. Then, after a wash in water and a careful drying, they ended up in a jar covered with olive oil.

Now it’s time to open that jar…and begin to cook this risotto!

Ingredients: (serves 4)

– 400 g rice (Carnaroli or Arborio)

– 1 onion finely chopped

– half a glass of white dry wine

– sun-dried tomatoes under oil

– 200 g chèvre (goat cheese)

– 4 spoons of olive oil

– salt, pepper

– 1 teaspoon of butter

– parmesan cheese (grated)

– boiling water

Put oil and 1 onion finely chopped in a pan and fry lightly. Add rice and toast it (touch it with your finger, when it’s warm it’s ready), add the wine and let evaporate. Cook the rice adding a little bit at a time boiling water, remember to toss frequently. After 7 minutes add sun-dried tomatoes cut in small stripes. Adjust with salt and pepper. Meanwhile cut the cheese in small cubes. When the rice is cooked you can stir: add the goat cheese, the butter and the parmesan cheese. If you want you can use a pastry ring for make a nice shape. That you can put also in your fridge and eat the day after. Buon appetito!